The Spanish American War (1898-1901)

Puerto Rico & Cuba After the Treaty of Paris

Review Test

What factors led into the conflict between Spain and the Cuban Nationalists
(insurrectos) in 1895?

The Cuban Nationalists moved against Spain partly because they thought the US
was likely to aid them. The US was investing increasing amounts of money into
Cuban sugar production ($50 million by 1895) and conducted a trade with Cuba
worth $100 million annually. From the 1860s on, the US had even tried to
purchase Cuba from Spain several times. Other causes behind the Cuban revolt in
1895 include a general opposition to a long history of Spanish control and the
Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894. The tariff, which raised prices on sugar
imported from Cuba in order to protect US sugar growers, ended up hurting
the Cuban economy significantly. Hard times in Cuba led to public unrest and
conflict with the Spanish regime.

How did yellow journalism manipulate public opinion? Why did newspapermen
like Hearst engage in such journalism?

The whole point of yellow journalism was to produce exciting, sensational
stories, even if the truth had to be stretched or a story had to be made up.
These stories would boost sales, something very important in this period, when
newspapers and magazines were battling for circulation numbers. In regard to the
situation in Cuba in the mid-1890s, yellow journalism sought to exploit the
atrocities in Cuba to sell more magazines and newspapers. Spanish behavior was
always represented as exaggeratedly bad, and political cartoons depicted "Spain"
as a nearly subhuman and brutal monster, while "Cuba" was usually depicted as a
pretty white girl being pushed around by the Spanish monster. As soon as
conflicts erupted in Spain, the yellow presses knew they had a story. Once US
opinions were inflamed over Cuba, Hearst in particular tried to do everything he
could to whip the public into such a frenzy that a war would start. Once at war,
Hearst knew his papers would have no end of interesting and sensational articles
to publish, and would profit from this.

Why did the USS Maine explode?

The explosion of the Maine is still a topic for debate today. At the
time, the US claimed a Spanish mine had blown it up, while the Spanish
investigation team said it blew up because of internal mechanical problems. At
the time, Americans accepted the mine hypothesis, and went to war. However, a
1970s study by the US Navy suggested that an internal boiler room problem may
have caused ammunition and weapons magazines to explode. Other recent studies,
by the Smithsonian and National Geographic, have suggested other possibilities.
To this day, the real reason for the explosion of the Maine remains a
mystery.

Why did Congress pass the Teller Amendment?

In order to prove the righteousness of the US cause in the war against Spain,
Congress decided to send a message to the European powers, which thought the
United States was just making an imperialistic land-grab for Cuba. Congress
passed the Teller Amendment, in which the US promised not to annex Cuba, but
to liberate it as an independent state. Thus, the US claimed to be fighting the
war not for selfish gain, but to liberate an oppressed people and promote
justice in the world. As events would show, US behavior in the war did not
remain so totally pure and idealistic.

Why was Theodore Roosevelt so eager to have Dewey attack the Spanish fleet in
the Philippines, a move that certainly would not help in the liberation of Cuba?
Furthermore, why would the cautious McKinley ever approve such a move?

The reason involves Mahan's theories. In order to protect trade and
influence throughout the world, Mahan advocated a series of island coaling
stations throughout the world. (Since US ships ran on coal at the time, they
needed places to stop and refuel) In taking the Philippines from the Spanish,
the US hoped to gain a coaling station to help the US Navy patrol in the Far
East, keeping Asian markets open to US traders and merchants. Here, with the
move against the Philippines, the initial goal of liberating Cuba expressed in
the Teller Amendment seemed to be giving way to a war for imperialist
expansion.

Discuss America's imperialist episode in 1898, when it took four colonies. Was
this an aberration or the beginning of a new trend?

The switch to imperialist behavior and the taking of colonies that happened in
1898 has been a topic of great historical attention. After all, the US has
generally claimed to be against colonies, and an advocate of freedom, democracy,
and self-government for all. Some historians believe that this imperialist
period was a "Great Aberration", a mistake that the US would never repeat, and
one that goes against everything the US stands for. Others think that America
really continued to have a kind of "informal colonial" influence throughout the
twentieth century. By "informal colonialism", they mean that the US has
promoted democracy to open markets for its manufactures and sources of raw
materials, in the same economic relationship that European powers had with their
colonies. Under this view, the colony grabbing of 1898 (Guam, Hawaii,
Philippines, Puerto Rico) was only the most obvious episode of American
imperialism before it discovered more subtle methods of economic domination,
known as "informal imperialism" or "neo-imperialism".

What single factor led to the greatest number of US deaths during the Spanish-
American War?

Disease. Although the US defeated the Spanish army handily, disease came close
to defeating the US Army. Malaria, typhoid, dysentery, and yellow fever plagued
American troops, who were fighting in the tropics for the first time in US
history. In all, while the Spanish only killed about 400 American soldiers,
around 5,000 US soldiers died from disease. As a result of the Spanish-American
War, Walter Reed, a pathologist and biologist working for the US Army, began
groundbreaking work into the causes of yellow fever.

What reasons were behind the US annexation of the Philippines under the Treaty
of Paris?

The American annexation of the Philippines in order to "Christianize" the
Filipinos seems to make little sense, since the Filipinos were almost entirely
Catholic, and had been for centuries. Partially, this US desire was based on the
American public's ignorance. Many people just assumed that the Filipinos were
all "heathens". While plenty of Americans knew the Filipinos were Catholics,
zealous American Protestants, who considered Catholicism only barely removed
from heathenism, still largely dominated in the US. The decision to annex the
Philippines was also justified in terms of an American adoption of the British
idea of a "white man's burden," which required that "racially superior" nations
such as the United States had a duty to share their wisdom and government with
their "little brown and yellow brothers" all over the world. Arguments made for
the annexation of Philippines in 1898 represent some of the most racist and
paternalistic strains in American thought. But as is usually the case with the
United States, business interests also supported annexation of the Philippines.
While Wall Street and business insiders like Mark Hanna had originally opposed
the war, they all argued for the annexation of the Philippines. The Philippines,
they said, had a population of 7 million people, which was a sizeable new market
for American manufactured goods. Also, following Mahan's theories, the
Philippines would provide an American coaling station and naval base to
protect US trade interests and maintain stability throughout Asian waters. With
both the public and big business largely behind annexation, McKinley pushed for
the acquisition of the Philippines.

Why did William Jennings Bryan (A Democrat) help the Treaty of Paris
(pushed by the Republicans) pass the Senate in 1899?

Bryan knew that if the treaty passed, the nation would see the Republicans, the
majority party at the time, as responsible for annexation. In the election of
1900, Bryan hoped to run against McKinley on an anti-Imperialist platform, and
by passing the treaty, he hoped to associate the Republicans with Imperialism.
Bryan expected imperialism to quickly become unpopular, giving the Democrats an
issue to criticize the Republicans over. Unfortunately for Bryan, not enough
voters were upset about imperialism by 1900 to aid his cause: he still lost to
McKinley. Bryan also suggested that the sooner the US annexed the Philippines,
Guam and Puerto Rico, the sooner the US could prepare them for independence.

Why did the Filipinos revolt against American rule? What role did Emilio
Aguinaldo play?

During the Spanish-American War, the Filipinos had fought with the Americans
against the Spanish, thinking that the Americans were there to liberate them,
just as the Americans were liberating Cuba. When they learned that the Americans
were not going home, they felt betrayed. On Jan 23, 1899, the Filipinos
proclaimed an independent republic and elected long-time nationalist Emilio
Aguinaldo president. The US sent in reinforcements to put down this "rogue"
government. Fighting against the Filipino nationalists, who were using guerilla
warfare, lasted for about three years. Ironically, the war against Aguinaldo's
guerilla fighters was much more difficult and bloody for the US than the
relatively easy Spanish-American War. On March 23, 1901, the US finally put down
the Filipino revolt by capturing Aguinaldo. After being forced to take an oath
and accepting a pension from the US government, Aguinaldo retired, and never led
further revolutions.